Barcelona, II International Corporate Universities Forum (ICUF)

Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, has consolidated its position as the 4th best European city in which to locate a business and the best city in Europe in terms of the quality of life of its workers.

Barcelona is the economic, cultural and administrative capital of Catalonia and is one of the principal metropolises of Spain and the European Union.

It is located on the shores of the Mediterranean, in northeastern Spain. A mere 2 hours from France by road and well connected to the major cities of Europe, Barcelona is in a strategic geographic location.
With almost 1.6 million inhabitants and an area of only 100 km², the city of Barcelona has one of the highest population densities in Europe. As well as its registered citizens, Barcelona also attracts many visitors and tourists throughout the year.

But the “real” Barcelona goes beyond the frontiers of the administrative city. Hence, the metropolitan region of Barcelona includes more than 160 municipalities with some 4.8 million inhabitants (10.7 % of the population of Spain).
Barcelona also acts as a centre of an “economic Euroregion”, defined by the cities within 3 hours by road, with more than 17 million inhabitants, including the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Aragon and southwestern France.

Quality of life

Barcelona is a cosmopolitan city with museums, theatres, architecture, music, an historical Gothic quarter and a safe, pleasant street life with a wide range of events, festivals, exhibitions, etc. The Mediterranean lifestyle makes Catalonia attractive for qualified professionals and students because of the street life and pleasant climate, and also because of urban development where the focus is on people and the open approach to creativity and innovation.

Barcelona is the 4th most visited European city, the 11th most visited city in the world. The port of Barcelona is the top cruise-ship destination on the Mediterranean. Barcelona airport is the 9th busiest European airport in terms of passenger traffic and ranks among the European airports that have shown the greatest increase in activity.

Talent and creativity

Catalan society is known for its talent, creativity and qualifications, along with motivation and a strong commitment to work. Examples of talent are to be found in architecture (Antoni Gaudí, Oriol Bohigas, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Ildefons Cerdà …), art (Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí …), music (Montserrat Caballé, Josep Carreras, Pau Casals …), cuisine (Ferran Adrià, Carme Ruscalleda, Santi Santamaria …), sports (Pau Gasol, Pep Guardiola, Dani Pedrosa, Gemma Mengual, Marc Coma…), science and medicine (Joan Oró, Moisès Broggi, Valentí Fuster, Narcís Monturiol, Ignasi Barraquer, Joan Massagué…) and so on.

Business Schools and Universities

In Barcelona there are several renowned international business schools such as IESE (in second place among business schools in the ranking of the world’s top 100 MBAs published by The Economist 2008 and ranked third in the world in the Financial Times Executive Education 2009 ranking) and ESADE (listed by Business Week in 2008 among the top 10 MBA programs outside the United States and number one in Europe for the third consecutive year according to recruiters and named the best business school by the Wall Street Journal (in 2006 and 2007).

In Catalonia there are 12 public and private universities with more than 227,000 students and more than 400 different degrees.

Catalonia is home to 17 international schools that offer the educational programs of their respective countries of origin.

International Trade Fairs

Barcelona is the fourth European city in available space of exhibition (280.000 m²). With 136 congresses celebrated in 2008, Barcelona is in third place in the ranking of the world’s most popular cities organizing international events, according to ICCA (International Congress and Convention Association). International Trade Fairs in Barcelona include Mobile World Congress, Barcelona Degusta, 080 Barcelona Fashion, Barcelona Meeting Point, International Logistics and Materials Handling Exhibition, World Innovation Summit, International Tourism Show, Barcelona Motor Show, Construmat, Hispack, SonImagFoto and SalonNautico.